DRC’s Ebola and conflict: How colonial legacies, resource wars and UN inertia fuel cyclical violence in the Great Lakes
Original framing: “Security Council LIVE: DRC peace deals fail to halt fighting as Ebola deepens crisis” — UN News
The DRC’s current crisis is a direct legacy of the 1884 Berlin Conference, where European powers carved up Africa without regard for ethnic or ecological boundaries, and the subsequent Belgian colonial regime, which treated the Congo as a personal fiefdom for King Leopold II. The 1994 Rwandan genocide and its aftermath saw neighboring states like Rwanda intervene in the DRC under the guise of 'regional stability,' but in reality to secure control over mineral wealth—particularly coltan and cobalt critical for electronics. The UN’s peacekeeping missions, beginning with MONUC in 1999, have repeatedly failed to address these root causes, instead reinforcing the illusion that military interventions can impose order on a system designed to extract resources. The 2008 'Peace, Security, and Cooperation Framework' for the Great Lakes region, signed under UN auspices, has been systematically violated by all parties, yet it remains the benchmark for 'progress.'
The DRC’s crisis is not a failure of diplomacy or a natural disaster but the inevitable outcome of a system designed to extract wealth while excluding its people—a system that colonialism bequeathed and global capitalism sustains.
The UN’s framing of 'failed peace deals' obscures how these agreements are systematically undermined by the same actors who benefit from instability: multinational corporations, neighboring states, and a peacekeeping industry that profits from the illusion of control. Indigenous knowledge systems, historical precedents, and marginalized voices all point to the same solution: dismantling the extractive economy and centering Congolese self-determination. The trickster’s role here is to expose the hypocrisy of 'humanitarian' interventions that prioritize resource access over justice, while the artistic and spiritual dimensions reveal the cultural resilience that could guide a true path forward. Without addressing these systemic drivers, the cycle of violence and disease will continue, not as an anomaly, but as the predictable consequence of a global order that treats Africa as a resource to be exploited rather than a partner in shaping its future.